For secondary teachers, a checklist of Canvas & Synergy settings that should be set or verified at the start of the school year. All links will open in a new tab.

Canvas

• Cross List Course Cards - If you teach 3 sections of the same course you will start the year with 3 course cards. Cross listing will combine them into one course with 3 sections.
• Rename your Courses - For the first two weeks of each semester, you can edit the course name & code. Do this after cross listing.
• Import Course Content from Last Year - You can locate last year's course that you want to copy  in Courses → All Courses.
• Course Settings→ More options - Check the "Hide totals in student grades summary" box to turn off the overall % and letter grade display in Canvas. 
  • Students & parents will use StudentVUE & ParentVUE respectively to view the overall class grade.
• Set up Grade Passback - to send assignments & assignment scores to the Synergy grade book. 
  • If the automatic nightly sync is not enabled, be sure to turn it on. (instructions in article)
  • Do NOT hide the "Grade Sync" menu item. Students will not see it and it is a valuable tool for both you and IT staff supporting you.

Synergy

The Synergy grade book will have carried over the majority of your settings from last year, but you should run through the checklist below to make sure your grade book is good to go for the new year. All of the menu items listed below can be accessed from the Grade Book menu in TeacherVUE.

Grade Book Setup Screen
Set the way your grade book works and how the overall class grades are calculated. 

• Note: By default, the settings only apply to the section that you are currently focused to. There are checkboxes at the bottom of the screen to apply them to your other sections as well.
• Set assignment weighting, if using (Example: weighting formative assignment types at 0% and summative ones totaling up to 100%).  Click the green "Update" button when done.
• Custom grade scales (report card score types) carried over but need to be applied to your sections for the new year. See "Final Grade Config" section below.

Final Grade Config
Where you change the default grade scale (90%=A, 80%=B etc) to a custom grade scale you have previously set up. If you don't use a custom grade scale you can skip this screen. 

• If using a custom grade scale, apply it to your classes.
• Be sure to apply that grade scale to all students and set it as the default so new students added to the class will automatically have this scale applied.